A ceasefire in northern Yemen has calmed a conflict that drove nearly quarter-of-a-million people from their homes, but bloody images still haunt Ali Nasser.
“I saw a soldier full of pain after being shot with a bullet in the stomach. I was so scared,” the 10-year-old boy said. “The soldier was crying and bleeding. Blood was everywhere.”
Nasser was reliving his memories in the safety of an apartment his parents have rented in the capital, Sana’a.
His family, like thousands of others who have fled fighting between government troops and Zaidi Shi’ite rebels, have no immediate prospects of returning home.
“We can’t go back. Our house was destroyed,” said Nasser Ali Sadd, who abandoned his temporary refuge in the northern city of Saada when battles exploded on to the streets in December.
“There was shooting everywhere. Houses and farms were destroyed. Parts of Saada, the old city, were destroyed,” he said, as he helped children with their homework.
This month the government and the rebels, known as Houthis after their leader’s clan, agreed a ceasefire in a conflict that has raged sporadically in rugged northern mountains since 2004.
The Houthis, who deny government charges that Iran supports them, complain of religious, economic and social deprivation.
Sadd and his family had ended up in Saada after repeatedly moving to escape the front line. The fighting intensified in August and drew in Saudi Arabia against the rebels in November.
More than 241Â 000 displaced persons, or 31Â 000 families, have been registered in Yemen, mostly living in or outside camps in the north, according to UN refugee agency UNHCR.
Just across the border in Saudi Arabia, the government has said it is building 10Â 000 housing units to accommodate Saudi civilians evacuated from the remote war zone since November.
Dire straits
In Sana’a, thousands of homeless civilians depend on UN aid, savings or help from relatives, said Saad Matar, who fled from Saada almost a year ago and now helps people in a similar plight deal with the Yemeni government and UN agencies.
“The situation of the displaced persons is very bad. Many try to work as day labourers or rely on relatives,” he said. “They have to pay rent to live in private apartments.”
Impoverished Yemen cannot care for dislocated civilians in the same way as its rich neighbour, Saudi Arabia, which provides its evacuees with air-conditioned tents or hotel vouchers.
Sana’a says it wants to rebuild Saada and other provinces devastated in the conflict but diplomats question how fast this might happen — and whether the ceasefire will hold.
Apart from the Houthis, the government faces separatist unrest in the south and a resurgent al-Qaeda network that the West fears will exploit instability in Yemen to prepare more attacks like the attempted bombing of a United States airliner on December 25.
UN agencies are asking the government to grant them access to distressed civilians in the former war zone, but landmines still block some roads, said UNHCR spokesperson Marie Marullaz.
Aid agencies have had only limited access to the region, from which the government also bars journalists and diplomats.
The UNHCR, already helping 171Â 000 mostly Somali refugees in Yemen, is running out of money for its operations.
“Unless there is a prompt response from the donor community, this severe lack of funding will soon have a direct impact on the estimated 250Â 000 IDPs [internally displaced persons] and 170Â 000 refugees in Yemen,” Marullaz said.
The ebb and flow of the long-running conflict disrupted education in the north. Few children attended school regularly. Some of those who fled to Sana’a are now trying to catch up.
“The children get extra lessons from private teachers in the afternoon to improve their learning. The parents don’t get any government help for this,” said Matar, the aid coordinator.
For children, fear of air raids is still vivid, even in the safety of the capital, about 250km south of Saada.
“My children dived to the ground when they heard a civilian plane when we arrived in Sana’a,” Sadd said.
A boy named Said Ahmed summed up what terrifies him.
“I’m afraid of Houthis and planes.” — Reuters